Simpson & Vail

A very tasty tea with a good balance of spices. The tea base is a good quality-I like that it is an organic Chinese tippy tea, and it is not prone to any bitterness at all.

Thanks so much Nicole for this nice black!

The tea brews a nice amber color. The taste is smooth and sweet with a slight floral flavor and hints of pecan and red grape.

Upon opening this package it sort of smelled like Pistachio’s and creme/cream.

It’s a lovely flavored green tea. I enjoyed it VERY much! I had 2 infusions, actually.It’s green tea but creamy and nutty. The end-sip is a bit floral and grassy (I almost typed GASSY…lol)

This is very good!

OH! Check out my blog, btw, I posted two things today!
http://blissfulyogajourney.blogspot.com/
One is about my NEW favorite Veggie Burgers and the other is about the Vegan Stuffed Mushrooms I made for New Years Eve :)

Rich, redolent, and reliable, a great everyday tea for serious black-tea lovers

This is WONDERFUL.

It’s slightly misty, a bit mossy, earthy, yet sweet and mouth watering!

I agree with the product description saying that this white has more body than most white teas. It’s quite hearty. This is fairly brothy – like soup. I really REALLY like this!

As I continue to sip – I can pick up some rice-Y notes, too, it too, and some floral notes.

This is darling!

Bit the bullet and sipped this one down yesterday! 938. (That number was reduced a bunch, then added to by 8 incoming teas from 52teas. And then there’s that bag from Sil next to me…. yikes…) As usual, the tea was great. I’d probably like to have this or a similar blend stick around with me, as it’s a nice alternative to a bakery treat. Certainly not almond sugar cookie IMO, but bakey-caramelized sugar-nutty goodness, yes.

Almost gone now… and still pretty tasty. Nutty, sugary black, just as labelled.

This tea really needs to go! Likely owing to its unsealed bag, it’s definitely losing flavour, though it’s certainly still tasty enough to drink. Almondy (without tasting like amaretto) and very much baked-goodsy, I should be able to finish it off pretty quickly if I try, since it’s definitely the right season for it!

Put some of this in a travel mug earlier this week as well, since I wanted to try it again after having had ATR’s fancy schmancy tea that I don’t remember the name of… oh, Brioche. Right. I think I preferred ATR’s, but this one is pretty tasty, and neither would make it onto the “must have” list, so in my mind they’d end up being more or less comparable. Which is fine by me! A side by side comparison might be interesting, but that’s not likely to happen for me anytime soon (or ever, truthfully).

Oh, and in case you were wondering, this tea does taste like almond sugar cookies. Or perhaps almond biscotti. Definitely almond, but not leaning too far towards amaretto.

Hmm, I think I wasn’t in a proper tea mood on Thursday, or I brewed this incorrectly that day, as it was definitely not as tasty as I remembered. I actually dumped half my mug out. It just wasn’t sitting right with me for whatever reason.

I have no idea why I ordered this tea. I don’t really like sugar cookies. I’m fairly indifferent about almond flavouring (and don’t really like marzipan). So I assume it must have been near the top of the list of highly rated S&V teas.

Either way…. I have no regrets! This tea smells like almond sugar cookies. Exactly like them. Floury, sugary cookie with nutty almond. NOT marzipan, which too many “almond-flavoured” things taste like (ick). The flavour is quite true to an almond sugar cookie as well… except that it is not sweet in the slightest. An issue easily fixed by adding sugar (and really, who here would appreciate if they had dumped a load of stevia in just to make it sweet?) I didn’t add sugar though… this tea doesn’t need it to be tasty.

The black base here is also quite present, and is contributing a bit of astringency/making my mouth a bit dry, which is a little entertaining as dry cookies can totally do that to you too! I think I may have overleafed a touch here, so that may be the cause, or that may just be how this tea is. It’s not too bothersome though.

Anyways, I’ve now gone through all my new Simpson & Vail teas, and certainly need to make another order at some point, or someone try all the other flavours I regret not ordering!

ETA: Second infusion (same parameters) was a lighter version of the first, but with more astringency.

So this tea. I don’t know what happened, but it smelled like it was going off (it was in a paper bag, so it’s possible?), and very unfortunately, that smell permeated into some other teas. I debated trying a cup of it, but opted to just toss the remainder instead. I was surprised to see that I actually enjoyed this in the past, so I’d be curious to try it again in the future.

This smells so strongly like root beer, it’s crazy! And the flavour is the most authentic root beer flavour I’ve tried in a tea yet. I’m drinking this cold because I left it for quite a while, and I think it’s great this way, but I should try it hot as well.

The only downside to this tea is that although I like root beer, I don’t think this is a tea I’d want to drink too often.

Sipdown! Yay me!

Still pretty tasty, and perfect as a treat in this cold weather. Not that I’ve been outside much, mind you, but the floor is darn cold…!

Another “repeat” from the travel mugs. I just didn’t have the time to grab different teas :(

Anyways, nothing really to be sad about, as this one’s still quite enjoyable. So much like actual coffeecake, it’s crazy. I don’t think I’d buy this again (merely due to cupboard space issues) but would more than happily drink it if offered!

Apparently I don’t have too much of this one left! Which is ok only because I have too many other teas :D Anyhow, into the travel mug it went, and it was oh-so-tasty. I had somehow forgotten about all my S&V teas when choosing flavoured blacks for the morning; I’ll have to migrate some into the “potential morning selections” bin :P

I am not sure I’ve ever had a tea that smells quite so true to a baked good! This tea smells exactly like the coffeecake I’ve had before, complete with oaty/brown sugary topping. The cinnamon is lightly present, and I can imagine that I’m smelling apple, although it’s not a predominant aroma.

The tea doesn’t taste quite as good as it smells (mom agreed), and I’m really not getting the apple, but it does taste quite cakey and with that light cinnamon flavour, which is quite delicious. I would like it to be a bit sweeter and/or creamier, and have more fruitiness, but this really isn’t bad at all! I imagine that if this was to be sweetened, it would be bang on coffeecake flavour.

Thanks Indigobloom for letting me thief a bit of this before I hand it off to you!

So from the description, I’m expecting pretty much a black currant-flavoured tea. Which have been rather hit or miss for me – Jane Austen Mafia from Adagio was quite good, although it also has a creaminess, but I dislike 52teas’ blends containing black currant.

The flavour of the cup is more on the side of the 52teas’ flavouring, somewhat candy-like but less artificial. Definitely kind of perfumey, which I don’t think gooseberries actually are. (Funny observation: I think last time I ate gooseberries, they were rather tart, so my mouth is currently watering like crazy in anticipation of eating tart fruits, even though I know the tea will be nothing like that! I should note that this also is more of a ‘dilute-the-tartness’ thing, than an ‘om-nom-nom’ thing. Silly salivary glands!)

The flavour of the cup is milder than I anticipated. Not very fruity at all. The “gooseberry/black currant” flavour is there, as is the perfuminess, but they’re quite mild. This is definitely not an in-your-face flavoured tea!

Certainly not my cup of tea, but I imagine it may be for those who like this sort of fruitiness!

One day, I’d like to have this fresh again. I really like this particular ginger pear combination – sweet and not too powerful.

One cup of this left, which I’ll probably have soon – I forgot how delicious this tea was! And it resteeps well, too. A really balanced blend of pear and ginger.

Yum yum, still like this tea. Sweet ginger and pear, and if anything, tastes better cold!

Best when cooled, because it tastes like candy. :D

Ok, sorry, I’ll stop spamming the dashboard now. Just one last note on this tea – still great in a travel mug, and almost tempting to get more because it’s so enjoyable. But as long as I have this much tea, and Ginger Pear remains available, I will resist. It’s just that lure of teas going out of stock/becoming unavailable. Gets me every time. :(

Sometimes, this tea is really amazing in a Timolino, particularly when allowed to cool completely. Yesterday/today was one of those times. Malty, flavourful base, a perfect amount of sweetness, a small dose of pear and a slightly bigger hit of ginger. I always partially dread drinking it until I take a sip, and then I wish I had more. Still have a good few mugs of this left that I should finish off sooner rather than later (that won’t be too difficult…)